'''Sinhala''' (සිංහල) is the main language of [[Sri Lanka]]. Approximately three quarters of Sri Lanka's population of ca. 21 million speak Sinhala as their mother tongue and many others in the country speak it as a second language. It is widely used in all the regions of the island except the north and east, where many people who speak [[Tamil_phrasebook|Tamil]] as their first language may not be so good at speaking Sinhala.

+

+

Sinhala belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Though originally a language of the common man in Sri Lanka, where scholars - mainly Buddhist monks - preferred Pali and [[Sanskrit_phrasebook|Sanskrit]] for their writings, Sinhala inscriptions dating from the third or second century BCE have been found. The oldest existing Sinhala literary works date back to the ninth century CE. The alphabet employed is descended from the ancient Brahmi script of the Indian region. The language has been greatly enriched by its association with Buddhism, which was introduced to the island in the third century BCE. In addition to regional tongues like [[Tamil_phrasebook|Tamil]], languages from far away like [[Portuguese_phrasebook|Portuguese]], [[Dutch_phrasebook|Dutch]] and English have also influenced Sinhala due to European colonization.

+

+

A marked difference exists between the spoken and written forms of Sinhala. The simpler spoken variety is found even in informal writing, e.g. in letters among friends. One is likely to hear the written form only in formal announcements and speeches - or in TV/radio newscasts.

+

+

==Pronunciation guide==

+

+

''The Sinhala alphabet consist of vowels, consonants and diacritics. If a vowel sound occurs at the beginning of a word, the corresponding vowel letter is used. Vowel sounds that come after a consonant sound are usually denoted by the consonant letter + the necessary diacritic/s. An attempt has been made below to transliterate the Sinhala vowels and consonants with reasonable accuracy using Roman characters and some other signs.''

===Vowels===

===Vowels===

+

+

; අ - a : short version of the following; like 'u' in "cut" in some pronunciations

+

; ආ - ā : close to 'a' in "father”

+

; ඇ - A : short version of the following

+

; ඈ - Ā : like 'a' in "bad”

+

; ඉ - i : like 'y' in "happy"

+

; ඊ - ī : like 'ee' in "feel" (long version of the preceding)

+

; එ - e : like 'e' in "bed"

+

; ඒ - ē : like 'a' in "table" in pronunciations without the diphthong (long version of the preceding)

+

; ඔ - o : close ‘o’ sound; short version of the following

+

; ඕ - ō : long close ‘o’ sound; like 'o' in "note" in pronunciations without the diphthong

The ‘z’ sound, which is not found in Sinhala, is sometimes written ''''zස'''' when transcribing foreign words. Similarly, some people tend to opt for ''''fප'''' to denote the 'f' sound instead of using the letter 'ෆ'.

−

{{phrase}}

+

+

===Diacritics===

+

+

''All stand-alone Sinhala consonant letters have the corresponding consonant sound + the inherent vowel sound ‘'''a'''’(see above) in them. However, in some syllables this inherent vowel sound is reduced to a schwa (i.e. the sound of 'a' in "about" or 'o' in “carrot”) and this transliteration will use the symbol 'ə' instead of 'a' to indicate this. When a consonant sound is followed by some other vowel sound – or when there is no vowel sound after it - marks called diacritics are added to the consonant letter to denote the combination. Here are some examples of how such diacritics are used.''

As can be seen above, the diacritics differ between these two letters when there is no attached vowel sound as '''‘ම්’'''/''''ක්''''; as well as for the vowel sounds in '''‘මු’'''/'''කු''' and '''‘මූ’'''/''''කූ''''. The other letters also follow either of these two patterns. Only the letter 'ර - ra/rə' has the completely erratic ''''රු - ru''''/''''රූ - rū'''', which are not to be confused with ''''රැ - rA''''/''''රෑ - rĀ''''.

+

+

# Even when some words appear in writing with a long 'ā' sound at their end, it tends to be pronounced 'a' in everyday speech. For example, ''''මිනිහා - minihā''' (man)' becomes ''''මිනිහ - miniha'''' and ''''දෙනවා - dhenəvā''' (give)' becomes ''''දෙනව - dhenəva''''. In the phrases below, the colloquial short pattern has mostly been adopted.

+

#There is a special letter that is used in some words to denote the sound ‘lu’: '''ළු - ‘lu’'''

+

#The nasalized sound found in ‘මං’ or ‘කං’ occurs with other diacritics too, like in ''''කෝං – kōNG''' or '''මුං - muNG'''.

+

# A vowel or a consonant with an attached vowel sound can stand alone as a syllable; or it can combine with a consonant having no attached vowel sound to make up a syllable together: ''''අම්·මා - am·mā''' (mother)', ''''බ·ලා·පො·රොත්·තු·ව - ba·lā·po·roth·thu·və''' (hope)'

+

# As may be clear from the above point, when a double consonant occurs, each one of them has to be pronounced separately (i.e. it has to be geminated) since they belong to two separate syllables, like in ‘'''එන්·න - en·nə'''’ (come).

+

# Sinhala is a rhotic language, so the letter ‘r’ should be pronounced even when it stands alone as ''''ර් - r''''.

+

+

===Combined consonants===

+

+

''In certain words, some consonant combinations fuse into one character''

+

+

#For certain consonants, the following diacritic can add the sound '-ra/-rə': ''''ක්‍ර - kra/krə'''', '''ප්‍ර - pra/prə''' etc.<br />It can be combined with some other diacritics to denote the corresponding sounds: ''''ක්‍රි - kri'''' , ''''ක්‍රෝ - krō'''' etc. So the ‘Sri’ in Sri Lanka, which actually should be pronounced ‘shrī' though most people do not, is written ‘'''ශ්‍රී'''’.

+

# The sound '-ya/yə' is often combined with the preceding consonant if that consonant has no attached vowel sound: ''''ව්‍ය - vya/vyə'''', ''''ද්‍ය - dhya/dhyə'''' etc.<br />Some other diacritics can also be added to this combination, like ''''ව්‍යූ - ‘vyū''''.

+

# Some consonant letters are written in an attached manner in some words, like ''''ක්‍ෂ - ksha''''.

+

+

== Language structure ==

+

+

''The written Sinhala language, having an age-old literary tradition, has fine distinctions of verb conjugation, case inflection and so on. The study of all that is exclusively for the scholar. Even too much detail about the much simpler spoken form is not worthwhile for the casual visitor. However, a basic understanding of the structure of spoken Sinhala might help.''

*; අර ළමය (''arə laməya'') / අර ළමයි (''arə lamayi'') : that child / those children (away from both the speaker and listener, but they can see the child/children) - the same pattern for inanimate nouns

+

*; ඒ ළමය (''ē laməya'') / ඒ ළමයි (''ē lamayi'') : that child / those children (away from both the speaker and listener, and they cannot see the child/children) - the same pattern for inanimate nouns<br/><br/>

*; අරය/අරයල ('' arəya/arəyəla'') : (s)he/they(animate) (away from both the speaker and listener, but they can see the person/people)

+

*; එයා/එයාල (''eyā/eyāla'') : (s)he/they(animate) (away from both the speaker and listener, and they cannot see the person/people)<br/><br/>

+

*; මේක/මේව (''mēkə/mēva'') : it/they(inanimate) (near the speaker)

+

*; ඕක/ඕව (''ōkə/ōva'') : it/they(inanimate) (near the listener)

+

*; අරක/අරව (''arəkə/arəva'') : it/they(inanimate) (away from both the speaker and listener, but they can see the thing/things)

+

*; ඒක/ඒව (''ēkə/ēva'') : it/they(inanimate) (away from both the speaker and listener, and they cannot see the thing/things)

+

+

=== Nouns and postpositions ===

+

+

* There are no articles in Sinhala. The basic form of a noun is used in the definite sense. To render the indefinite sense, the noun ending is changed to ‘-ek’ in masculine nouns (or sometimes colloquially in feminine nouns) and ‘-ak’ in feminine or inanimate ones. Plural formation can be rather erratic but, once formed, it stands for both definite and indefinite senses.

* Most Sinhala pronouns were given in the section "Relative positions and demonstrative pronouns" above. Apart from them, there are 'මම (''mamə'') - I' and 'අපි (''api'') - we'. The following table illustrates how a representative group of them behave with postpositions.

* In spoken Sinhala, a verb changes form only between the present, past and future. In the present tense, for example, the verb remains the same for all pronouns and nouns, singular or plural. However, if some word other than the verb is highlighted in a sentence, a different verb form has to be used.

* When the ending ‘-ද (''-dhə'')’ is added to the verb, a statement turns into a question. If ‘-ද (''-dhə'')’ has to be added to some other word in the sentence or if a question word is used, the verb changes its form.

* To turn a positive statement into a negative one, the word 'නෑ (''nĀ'')' is used (with the verb form also changed). If the negation applies to a specific word rather than the whole statement, 'නෙමේ (''nemē'')' is placed after that word instead of 'නෑ (''nĀ'')'. In negative questions, 'නෑ (''nĀ'')' becomes 'නැද්ද (''nAdhdhə'')' and 'නෙමේ (''nemē'')' becomes 'නෙමේද (''nemēdhə'')'.

* The same pattern, with modifications, is taken to indicate existence and possession (or relationship). The only thing to remember is that the verb used differs between animate and inanimate nouns in the positive sense. Nothing else matters.

* Adjectives indicating characteristics are generally placed before the noun they qualify. The word 'නැති (''nAthi'')' coming between the adjective and the noun makes it negative. Corresponding adverbs are generally made by adding '-ට (''-tə'')', which becomes '-යට (''-yətə'')' or '-වට (''-vətə'')' after certain vowel sounds, to the end of an adjective. Adverbs also precede the verbs they qualify.

+

*; හොඳ කතාවක් (''hoNDHə kathāvak'') : a good story

+

*; හොඳ නැති කතාවක් (''hoNDHə nAthi kathāvak'') : a story that is not good, i.e. a bad story - නරක කතාවක් (''narəkə kathāvak'')

* When an adjective is used at the end of a sentence, '-යි (''-yi'')' is added to its end in most cases. In the negative sense, the adjective is followed by the word 'නෑ (''nĀ'')'.

+

*; කතාව හොඳයි. (''kathāvə hoNDHayi.'') : The story is good.

+

*; කතාව හොඳ නෑ. (''kathāvə hoNDHə nĀ.'') : The story is not good.

+

+

=== Requests ===

+

+

* When making a request, the expression for ‘please’ is almost always left out in everyday speech and the tone of voice as well as a friendly smile will convey the politeness. The request can be made more polite by turning it into a question.

''As Sri Lanka was a British colony for over 100 years, English still remains a language of prestige and most people know at least some words of it. While speaking Sinlala, many Sri Lankans tend to intersperse their speech with English words, though this practice is frowned upon by language purists. The visitor can happily benefit from this as follows:''

+

#An inanimate English noun used alone has the plural sense (definite or indefinite). It is possible to use such an English noun + ’එක (''ekə'')’ to make it singular (definite) or an English noun + ’එකක් (''ekak'')’ to make it singular (indefinite).

+

#; 'bus' : (the) buses

+

#; ‘bus එක’ : the bus

+

#; ‘bus එකක්’ : a bus

+

#When it comes to an animate noun, the English noun used alone has the definite singular sense while ‘කෙනෙක් (kenek)’ can be added to make it indefinite. To form the plural, '-ල (-la)' is added to its end.

+

#; 'driver' : the driver

+

#; ‘driver කෙනෙක්’ : a driver

+

#; 'driverල' : (the) drivers

+

#’වෙනව (''venəva'') - happen/become’ is added to an English verb or adjective to give a passive sense of undergoing/becoming and ’කරනව (''kərənəva'') - do’ is added the same way for an active sense of doing/causing.

Sri Lankans wobble their head when they want to express agreement in a neutral or somewhat non-committal way. Though the visitor does not need to imitate this, it is important to understand its meaning. Do not confuse it with the ordinary head shake, which means 'no' here too. Nodding the head is used to express agreement in a more committed or enthusiastic manner and one can safely use it to say 'yes' in all situations.

''The Sinahala words marked with <sup>***</sup> are written here with the long 'ā' sound at the end as they appear so on calendars, for example, but in everyday speech that sound is generally reduced to a short 'a', which is what you find in the pronunciation transcription.''

''Local fare available at typical Sri Lankan restaurants can be quite spicy. To have it not so hot, one may have to say 'සැර අඩුවට (sArə aduvətə)'. 'Tea' in such places may mean white tea with a lot of sugar in and black tea has to be ordered as 'plain tea', which also contains a lot of sugar. To have tea of either sort with less sugar, one can mention 'අඩු සීනි - adu sīni'. More modern places, on the other hand, have more options available and ask the customers about their taste when taking the order.''

+

+

''The Sinahala words marked with <sup>***</sup> are written here with the long 'ā' sound at the end as they appear so on labels, for example, but in everyday speech that sound is generally reduced to a short 'a', which is what you find in the pronunciation transcription.''

''The Sinahala words marked with <sup>***</sup> are written here with the long 'ā' sound at the end as they appear so on labels, for example, but in everyday speech that sound is generally reduced to a short 'a', which is indicated in the pronunciation.''

Sinhala (සිංහල) is the main language of Sri Lanka. Approximately three quarters of Sri Lanka's population of ca. 21 million speak Sinhala as their mother tongue and many others in the country speak it as a second language. It is widely used in all the regions of the island except the north and east, where many people who speak Tamil as their first language may not be so good at speaking Sinhala.

Sinhala belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Though originally a language of the common man in Sri Lanka, where scholars - mainly Buddhist monks - preferred Pali and Sanskrit for their writings, Sinhala inscriptions dating from the third or second century BCE have been found. The oldest existing Sinhala literary works date back to the ninth century CE. The alphabet employed is descended from the ancient Brahmi script of the Indian region. The language has been greatly enriched by its association with Buddhism, which was introduced to the island in the third century BCE. In addition to regional tongues like Tamil, languages from far away like Portuguese, Dutch and English have also influenced Sinhala due to European colonization.

A marked difference exists between the spoken and written forms of Sinhala. The simpler spoken variety is found even in informal writing, e.g. in letters among friends. One is likely to hear the written form only in formal announcements and speeches - or in TV/radio newscasts.

The Sinhala alphabet consist of vowels, consonants and diacritics. If a vowel sound occurs at the beginning of a word, the corresponding vowel letter is used. Vowel sounds that come after a consonant sound are usually denoted by the consonant letter + the necessary diacritic/s. An attempt has been made below to transliterate the Sinhala vowels and consonants with reasonable accuracy using Roman characters and some other signs.

somewhat close to ‘ckh' in "blackhead" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘k’ in everyday speech)

ග - g

like 'g' in "gum"

ඝ - G

somewhat close to 'g h' in "big hat" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘g’ in everyday speech)

ච - ch

like 'ch' in "chat"

ඡ - CH

somewhat close to 'ch h' in "church hymn" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘ch’ in everyday speech)

ජ - j

like 'j' in "jam"

ඣ - J

somewhat close to 'dge h' in "judge him" (aspirated version of the preceding – used only in writing some words of Pali origin)

ට - t

retroflex ‘t’; somewhat close to 't' in "cat"

ඨ - T

somewhat close to 't h' in "cat hops" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘t’ in everyday speech)

ඩ - d

retroflex ‘d’; somewhat close to 'd' in "bad"

ඪ - D

somewhat close to 'd H' in "Mad Hatter" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘d’ in everyday speech)

ත - th

dental ‘t’; somewhat close to 'th' in "thin"

ථ - TH

somewhat close to ‘th h’ in “bath house” (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘th’ in everyday speech)

ද - dh

dental ‘d’; somewhat close to 'th' in "this"

ධ - DH

somewhat close to 'th h' in "with him" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘dh’ in everyday speech)

ප - p

like 'p' in "tap"

ඵ - P

somewhat close to 'p h' in "top hat" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘p’ in everyday speech)

බ - b

like 'b' in "cab"

භ - B

somewhat close to 'b h' in "grab him" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘b’ in everyday speech)

ම - m

like 'm' in "him"

ය - y

like 'y' in "yard"

ර - r

like 'r' in "red"

ව - v

approximant ‘v’; somewhat close to 'v' in "van"

ස - s

like 's' in "side"

ශ / ෂ - sh

like 'sh' in "cash" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)

න / ණ - n

like 'n' in "can" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)

ල / ළ - l

like 'l' in "lake" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)

හ - h

like 'h' in "hat"

ෆ - f

like 'f' in "fan" (a letter to transcribe foreign words as the sound does not occur in Sinhala)

ඟ - NG

nasal sound like 'ng' in "singer"

ඬ - ND

nasal sound somewhat close to 'n d' in "can do"

ඳ - NDH

nasal sound somewhat close to 'n th' in "can they"

ඹ - MB

nasal sound somewhat close to 'mb' in "tomboy"

ඤ / ඥ - GN

nasal sound somewhat close to 'ny' in "canyon" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)

The ‘z’ sound, which is not found in Sinhala, is sometimes written 'zස' when transcribing foreign words. Similarly, some people tend to opt for 'fප' to denote the 'f' sound instead of using the letter 'ෆ'.

All stand-alone Sinhala consonant letters have the corresponding consonant sound + the inherent vowel sound ‘a’(see above) in them. However, in some syllables this inherent vowel sound is reduced to a schwa (i.e. the sound of 'a' in "about" or 'o' in “carrot”) and this transliteration will use the symbol 'ə' instead of 'a' to indicate this. When a consonant sound is followed by some other vowel sound – or when there is no vowel sound after it - marks called diacritics are added to the consonant letter to denote the combination. Here are some examples of how such diacritics are used.

zero vowel

අ - a

ආ - ā

ඇ - A

ඈ - Ā

ඉ - i

ඊ - ī

එ - e

ඒ - ē

ඔ - o

ඕ - ō

ඕ - ō

ඌ - ū

ඓ - ai

ඖ - au

ඍ - ru/ri

ඎ - rū/rī

අං - aNG

අඃ - aH

ම් - m

ම - ma/mə

මා - mā

මැ - mA

මෑ - mĀ

මි - mi

මී - mī

මෙ - me

මේ - mē

මො - mo

මෝ - mō

මු - mu

මූ - mū

මෛ - mai

මෞ - mau

මෘ - mru

මෲ - mrū

මං - maNG

මඃ - maH

ක් - k

ක - ka/kə

කා - kā

කැ - kA

කෑ - kĀ

කි - ki

කී - kī

කෙ - ke

කේ - kē

කො - ko

කෝ - kō

කු - ku

කූ - kū

කෛ - kai

කෞ - kau

කෘ - kru

කෲ - krū

කං - kaNG

කඃ - kaH

As can be seen above, the diacritics differ between these two letters when there is no attached vowel sound as ‘ම්’/'ක්'; as well as for the vowel sounds in ‘මු’/කු and ‘මූ’/'කූ'. The other letters also follow either of these two patterns. Only the letter 'ර - ra/rə' has the completely erratic 'රු - ru'/'රූ - rū', which are not to be confused with 'රැ - rA'/'රෑ - rĀ'.

Even when some words appear in writing with a long 'ā' sound at their end, it tends to be pronounced 'a' in everyday speech. For example, 'මිනිහා - minihā (man)' becomes 'මිනිහ - miniha' and 'දෙනවා - dhenəvā (give)' becomes 'දෙනව - dhenəva'. In the phrases below, the colloquial short pattern has mostly been adopted.

There is a special letter that is used in some words to denote the sound ‘lu’: ළු - ‘lu’

The nasalized sound found in ‘මං’ or ‘කං’ occurs with other diacritics too, like in 'කෝං – kōNG or මුං - muNG.

A vowel or a consonant with an attached vowel sound can stand alone as a syllable; or it can combine with a consonant having no attached vowel sound to make up a syllable together: 'අම්·මා - am·mā (mother)', 'බ·ලා·පො·රොත්·තු·ව - ba·lā·po·roth·thu·və (hope)'

As may be clear from the above point, when a double consonant occurs, each one of them has to be pronounced separately (i.e. it has to be geminated) since they belong to two separate syllables, like in ‘එන්·න - en·nə’ (come).

Sinhala is a rhotic language, so the letter ‘r’ should be pronounced even when it stands alone as 'ර් - r'.

For certain consonants, the following diacritic can add the sound '-ra/-rə': 'ක්‍ර - kra/krə', ප්‍ර - pra/prə etc.It can be combined with some other diacritics to denote the corresponding sounds: 'ක්‍රි - kri' , 'ක්‍රෝ - krō' etc. So the ‘Sri’ in Sri Lanka, which actually should be pronounced ‘shrī' though most people do not, is written ‘ශ්‍රී’.

The sound '-ya/yə' is often combined with the preceding consonant if that consonant has no attached vowel sound: 'ව්‍ය - vya/vyə', 'ද්‍ය - dhya/dhyə' etc.Some other diacritics can also be added to this combination, like 'ව්‍යූ - ‘vyū'.

Some consonant letters are written in an attached manner in some words, like 'ක්‍ෂ - ksha'.

The written Sinhala language, having an age-old literary tradition, has fine distinctions of verb conjugation, case inflection and so on. The study of all that is exclusively for the scholar. Even too much detail about the much simpler spoken form is not worthwhile for the casual visitor. However, a basic understanding of the structure of spoken Sinhala might help.

There are no articles in Sinhala. The basic form of a noun is used in the definite sense. To render the indefinite sense, the noun ending is changed to ‘-ek’ in masculine nouns (or sometimes colloquially in feminine nouns) and ‘-ak’ in feminine or inanimate ones. Plural formation can be rather erratic but, once formed, it stands for both definite and indefinite senses.

Definite Singular

Indefinite Singular

Plural

ගොවිය (miniha) - the farmer

ගොවියෙක් (minihek) - a farmer

ගොවියො (minissu) - (the) farmers

පුතා (puthā) - the son

පුතෙක් (puthek) - a son

පුතාල (puthāla) - (the) sons

ළමය (laməya) - the child

ළමයෙක් (laməyek) - a child

ළමයි (lamayi) - (the) children

මිනිහ (miniha) - the man

මිනිහෙක් (minihek) - a man

මිනිස්සු (minissu) - (the) men

නිළිය (niliyə) - the actress

නිළියක් (niliyak) - an actress

නිළියො (niliyo) - (the) actresses

දුව (dhuvə) - the daughter

දුවක් (dhuvak) - a daughter

දුවල (dhuvəla) - (the) daughters

වඳුර (vaNDHura) - the monkey

වඳුරෙක් (vaNDHurek) - a monkey

වඳුරො (vaNDHuro) - (the) monkeys

අලිය (aliya) - the elephant

අලියෙක් (aliyek) - an elephant

අලි (ali) - (the) elephants

මේසෙ (mēse) - the table

මේසයක් (mēsəyak) - a table

මේස (mēsə) - (the) tables

පොත (pothə) - the book

පොතක් (pothak) - a book

පොත් (poth) - (the) books

පාර (pārə) - the road

පාරක් (pārak) - a road

පාරවල් (pārəval) - (the) roads

To give an indefinite sense to uncountable nouns, the word ‘…ටිකක් (tikak)’ can be added.

Most Sinhala pronouns were given in the section "Relative positions and demonstrative pronouns" above. Apart from them, there are 'මම (mamə) - I' and 'අපි (api) - we'. The following table illustrates how a representative group of them behave with postpositions.

Meaning

මම (mamə)

අපි (api)

ඔයා (oyā)

ඔයාල (oyāla

ඒක (ēkə)

ඒව (ēva)

...with ______

මා එක්ක... (mā ekkə...)

අපි එක්ක... (api ekkə...)

ඔයා එක්ක... (oyā ekkə...)

ඔයාල එක්ක... (oyāla ekkə...)

ඒක එක්ක... (ēkə ekkə...)

ඒව එක්ක... (ēva ekkə...)

...near ______

මා ළඟ/ගාව... (mā laNGə/gāvə...)

අපි ළඟ/ගාව... (api laNGə/gāvə...)

ඔයා ළඟ/ගාව... (oyā laNGə/gāvə...)

ඔයාල ළඟ/ගාව... (oyāla laNGə/gāvə...)

ඒක ළඟ/ගාව... (ēkə laNGə/gāvə...)

ඒව ළඟ/ගාව... (ēva laNGə/gāvə...)

...of ______

මගෙ... (mage...)

අපේ... (apē...)

ඔයාගෙ... (oyāge...)

ඔයාලගෙ... (oyālage...)

ඒකෙ... (ēke...)

ඒවගෙ... (ēvage...)

...to/for ______

මට... (matə...)

අපට... (apətə...)

ඔයාට... (oyātə...)

ඔයාලට... (oyālatə...)

ඒකට... (ēkətə...)

ඒවට... (ēvatə...)

...from ______

මගෙන්... (magen...)

අපෙන්... (apen...)

ඔයාගෙන්... (oyāgen...)

ඔයාලගෙන්... (oyālagen...)

ඒකෙන්... (ēken...)

ඒවගෙන්... (ēvagen...)

Even when speaking to a friend, people often tend to use just that person's name, leaving out 'ඔයා (oyā) - you'. This is compulsory when addressing a person of higher rank.

In spoken Sinhala, a verb changes form only between the present, past and future. In the present tense, for example, the verb remains the same for all pronouns and nouns, singular or plural. However, if some word other than the verb is highlighted in a sentence, a different verb form has to be used.

මම කනව. (mamə kanəva.)

I eat. / I’m eating. / I'm going to eat.

අපි කනව. (api kanəva.)

We eat. / We’re eating. / We're going to eat.

මම කන්නෙ. (mamə kanne.)

I'm the one who eats. / I'm the one who is eating. / I'm the one who is going to eat.

අපි කන්නෙ. (api kanne.)

We're the ones who eat. / We're the ones who are eating. / We're the ones who are going to eat.

මිනිහ කෑව. (miniha kĀva.)

The man ate.

මිනිස්සු කෑව. (minissu kĀva.)

The men ate.

මිනිහ කෑවෙ. (miniha kĀve.)

It's the man who ate.

මිනිස්සු කෑවෙ. (minissu kĀve.)

It's the men who ate.

ළමය කයි. (laməya kayi.)

The child will eat.

ළමයි කයි. (lamayi kayi.)

The children will eat.

Other useful sentence patternsː

බත් කන්න. (bath kannə.)

Eat rice. ('Eating rice' often means having lunch or dinner. Of course they do not have just rice; several dishes called curries usually accompany the staple rice.)

When the ending ‘-ද (-dhə)’ is added to the verb, a statement turns into a question. If ‘-ද (-dhə)’ has to be added to some other word in the sentence or if a question word is used, the verb changes its form.

To turn a positive statement into a negative one, the word 'නෑ (nĀ)' is used (with the verb form also changed). If the negation applies to a specific word rather than the whole statement, 'නෙමේ (nemē)' is placed after that word instead of 'නෑ (nĀ)'. In negative questions, 'නෑ (nĀ)' becomes 'නැද්ද (nAdhdhə)' and 'නෙමේ (nemē)' becomes 'නෙමේද (nemēdhə)'.

The same pattern, with modifications, is taken to indicate existence and possession (or relationship). The only thing to remember is that the verb used differs between animate and inanimate nouns in the positive sense. Nothing else matters.

Adjectives indicating characteristics are generally placed before the noun they qualify. The word 'නැති (nAthi)' coming between the adjective and the noun makes it negative. Corresponding adverbs are generally made by adding '-ට (-tə)', which becomes '-යට (-yətə)' or '-වට (-vətə)' after certain vowel sounds, to the end of an adjective. Adverbs also precede the verbs they qualify.

හොඳ කතාවක් (hoNDHə kathāvak)

a good story

හොඳ නැති කතාවක් (hoNDHə nAthi kathāvak)

a story that is not good, i.e. a bad story - නරක කතාවක් (narəkə kathāvak)

හොඳට කතා කරන්න. (hoNDHətə kathā kərannə.)

Speak well.

හරි පාර (hari pārə)

the correct road

හරියට කියන්න. (hariyətə kiyannə.)

Say correctly.

When an adjective is used at the end of a sentence, '-යි (-yi)' is added to its end in most cases. In the negative sense, the adjective is followed by the word 'නෑ (nĀ)'.

When making a request, the expression for ‘please’ is almost always left out in everyday speech and the tone of voice as well as a friendly smile will convey the politeness. The request can be made more polite by turning it into a question.

මට වතුර ටිකක් දෙන්න. (matə vathurə tikak dhennə.)

Give me some water.

මට වතුර ටිකක් දෙනවද? (matə vathurə tikak dhenəvadhə?)

Will you give me some water? (more polite than the first - more suitable for a request with 'please' in English)

As Sri Lanka was a British colony for over 100 years, English still remains a language of prestige and most people know at least some words of it. While speaking Sinlala, many Sri Lankans tend to intersperse their speech with English words, though this practice is frowned upon by language purists. The visitor can happily benefit from this as follows:

An inanimate English noun used alone has the plural sense (definite or indefinite). It is possible to use such an English noun + ’එක (ekə)’ to make it singular (definite) or an English noun + ’එකක් (ekak)’ to make it singular (indefinite).

'bus'

(the) buses

‘bus එක’

the bus

‘bus එකක්’

a bus

When it comes to an animate noun, the English noun used alone has the definite singular sense while ‘කෙනෙක් (kenek)’ can be added to make it indefinite. To form the plural, '-ල (-la)' is added to its end.

'driver'

the driver

‘driver කෙනෙක්’

a driver

'driverල'

(the) drivers

’වෙනව (venəva) - happen/become’ is added to an English verb or adjective to give a passive sense of undergoing/becoming and ’කරනව (kərənəva) - do’ is added the same way for an active sense of doing/causing.

While English appears as one of the languages on a lot of signs in Sri Lanka, some may be only in the local languages.

විවෘතයි (vivruthayi)

Open

වසා ඇත (vasā Athə)

Closed

ඇතුල්වීම (Athulvīmə)

Entrance

පිටවීම (pitə vīmə)

Exit

තල්ලු කරන්න (thallu kərannə)

Push

අදින්න (adhinnə)

Pull

වැසිකිළිය (vAsikiliyə)

Toilet

පිරිමි (pirimi)

Men

ගැහැණු (gAhAnu)

Women

තහනම් (thahanam)

Prohibited, Forbidden

ඇතුල්වීම තහනම් (Athulvīmə thahanam)

No Entry

දුම්බීම තහනම් (dhumbīmə thahanam)

No Smoking

අන්ත්‍රාවයි (anthrāvayi)

Danger

Emergency telephone numbers

10 - Fire and Rescue Service

112 - Police Emergency Service (Mobile)

114 - Operational Commander Colombo (Sri Lanka Army)

115 - Colombo Municipal Council-Operational Unit

116 - Sri Lanka Air Force Emergency Service

117 - Disaster Management Call Centre

118 - National Help Desk (Ministry of Defence)

119 - Police Emergency Service

The South Asian head wobble

Sri Lankans wobble their head when they want to express agreement in a neutral or somewhat non-committal way. Though the visitor does not need to imitate this, it is important to understand its meaning. Do not confuse it with the ordinary head shake, which means 'no' here too. Nodding the head is used to express agreement in a more committed or enthusiastic manner and one can safely use it to say 'yes' in all situations.

The Sinahala words marked with *** are written here with the long 'ā' sound at the end as they appear so on calendars, for example, but in everyday speech that sound is generally reduced to a short 'a', which is what you find in the pronunciation transcription.

Local fare available at typical Sri Lankan restaurants can be quite spicy. To have it not so hot, one may have to say 'සැර අඩුවට (sArə aduvətə)'. 'Tea' in such places may mean white tea with a lot of sugar in and black tea has to be ordered as 'plain tea', which also contains a lot of sugar. To have tea of either sort with less sugar, one can mention 'අඩු සීනි - adu sīni'. More modern places, on the other hand, have more options available and ask the customers about their taste when taking the order.

The Sinahala words marked with *** are written here with the long 'ā' sound at the end as they appear so on labels, for example, but in everyday speech that sound is generally reduced to a short 'a', which is what you find in the pronunciation transcription.

The Sinahala words marked with *** are written here with the long 'ā' sound at the end as they appear so on labels, for example, but in everyday speech that sound is generally reduced to a short 'a', which is indicated in the pronunciation.